This invention relates to a method of checking the integrity of a series of printed sheets in which each of the sheets carries one of a series of consecutive codes preferably alpha or digit codes.
Many filing systems now in use of the type often used in hospitals, courts of law, insurance companies and the like include file folders which have labels applied to an edge of the file folder in a numerical and color code sequence. Thus for example a purchaser may require 100,000 numerical labels from 00,000 to 99,999 reading from top to bottom in vertically positioned numbers. In many cases each number 0 to 9 is associated with a particular color so that a user visually scanning an open filing system can readily observe misfiling of a particular file since it does not follow the color patterns which will be apparent from the filing system.
In order to produce these labels it is necessary to print onto a series of sheets of card or paper the proper numerical sequences.
Thus the first sheet would normally have printed on a lowermost row of the sheet the numeral 00 to 09 printed in a color associated with the numeral 0. A second sheet will have in the lowermost row the numerals 10 to 19 printed in the color associated with the numeral 1. Third and subsequence sheets will of course have the subsequent numerals in the sequence associated with the respective number.
Subsequently it is necessary to print onto each of the ten sheets in a series the number in the next column from the bottom of the sheet which will be one of the series 0 to 9 in the respective color.
In the example in which 100,000 labels are required, each of the ten different sheets of the first row will be printed one thousand times and then these must be collated into the required sets of ten consecutive numbers for printing of the next numeral of the row above. Subsequently further collation must be carried out in order to print the numeral of the third row in a similar manner to the numeral of the second row.
It is extremely important in all of the collations and reprintings that there are no errors in the collation since otherwise the proper numerical sequence from 00,000 to 99,999 will be lost thus destroying the integrity of the filing system with the danger of files being lost and misplaced since the proper color coded pattern cannot be followed.
The printing of the required sheets for the subsequent cutting into separate labels and application to the file folders has therefore to date required careful manual editing of the sheets after collation to ensure that the proper numerical sequence is followed. This is of course a very tedious and lengthly task which is expensive in labor costs and is prone to error in view of the tediousness involved. In some examples up to one million numerically coded files are printed in one run and the task of manually checking each sheet is of course a horrendous undertaking.